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This is ridiculous. Nobody has time for this.
Adam stood in front of the door to the therapist's office. Part of him wanted to just turn back around and walk away, then lie to Sarah about "giving it a try". No flowery words from some idiot therapist was going to solve any of his "issues". This was gonna be a waste of money that they didn't have.
The other part slammed the door open and stormed inside.
A large yellow dog sleeping on a just as large dog bed jerked its head up as he leaned on the door to close it. He ignored it coming over to say hello and sat in one of the crummy hospital-like waiting room chairs, only for the dog to follow him over and sit in front of him.
"The fuck do you want?" He asked it as it sniffed his pant leg. "If you're supposed to be here so I'll 'lower my guard' or whatever, it's not gonna happen. Push off."
The dog ignored him in favour of sniffing his jeans and shoes. It then sneezed on him and trotted away. Adam's already foul mood turned sour. 'Fucker.'
There didn't seem to be hand sanitizer anywhere, so he was stuck with wiping his hands off on his unaffected hoodie. The blond turned sideways and put his shoes on the chair beside him, electing to ignore the world for a while and play on his phone until the therapist was done with whatever they were doing.
~~~
Whatever Sophie was expecting when she finally made it to the right office, it wasn't some blond guy struggling to fend off an affectionate dog.
Jenny snorted a laugh and crossed her arms, watching the guy try (and fail) to push the dog away while simultaneously using his phone. "Quite the welcoming committee."
The redhead's voice drew the dog's attention away from its charge. Finally letting the guy shove it away with a final "fuck off!", it trotted over to the two and washed Sophie's hand with its tongue when she went to pet it.
"Its a cute one." The shier one of the two crouched down to scratch the dog's thick ruff of fur. "Are you my therapist, boy? Are ya?"
"I thought you were a cat person," Jenny teased.
"I can appreciate a good dog," Sophie teased back in a snide voice. "We all have to lower our standards sometimes."
"Whatever, catgirl. Do you want me to wait with you, or-"
"Nono, I'll be fine." Sophie finally removed herself from the ball of fluff and dusted fur off her arms. "Go. I'll call you when we're done."
Jenny gave her a two-fingered salute and left. Sophie gently pushed the dog aside and went further into the room.
It was a plain looking waiting room, all things considered. The walls were off-white, the uncomfortable seats were blue, the dog's bed was dirty blue and the book case stuffed full of ratty books was full of enough colours to throw everything into dull territory. A brief debate over going to get a book ended in Sophie heading for the chairs and pulling Jenny's smuggled DS out of her jacket pocket instead.
The dog lay at her feet as she opened the console and started up Pokémon Diamond. The dog echoed her feelings with a deep sigh as she immediately got lost in the video game's world.
~~~
The grating sound of some kind of electric creature caught Adam's attention after a few minutes of sulky phone staring. He tried to casually look over at the new person's DS and found he had to sit up to do that.
So much for being casual.
The new person, predictably, snapped the DS shut and shoved it in their pocket. Adam fought with his words for a moment before finally managing to at least say sorry.
An awkward silence fell between the two for a moment before Adam finally tried to break the ice. "So, uh...You play Pokémon?"
"It's my gir-my friend's system, actually." The new person pulled the DS out of their pocket again and turned it around in their hands. "She doesn't know I have it."
"Cool, cool."
"Yep."
Another long silence. Adam took a closer look at the stranger's jacket. "You play something?"
"Yeah, I uh-used to play baseball."
"Why'd you stop?"
"I graduated."
"Ah."
"This was my mom's bragging rights jacket." The stranger pulled the collar over their shoulder and turned a little to show the name and number on the back. "Whenever her kids came up in conversation, she'd bring up that I was a star at baseball. It was a real point of pride for her."
Adam hummed in acknowledgement. "Your name's Walter?"
"Actually it's Sophie," they corrected. "And my last name is Walten. Not Walter."
"I'm pretty sure they put Walter there."
"Knock it off."
"I'm just saying."
"How about you 'just say' your name instead?"
Adam almost told them to mind their own business, then caught himself. They did tell him their own name, after all. "Adam."
"Adam..."
"Murray."
Sophie nodded, then tilted her head slightly. "What do the letters on your hoodie stand for?"
"None of your business."
"Fair enough."
They opened the console with that, effectively ending the conversation. Adam managed to look at his phone for all of a second when the electric sound came again. "That sounds like Pikachu."
"Yeah, it is." Sophie showed him the screen, where a Pikachu nicknamed Gotcha was facing off against a creature that looked like a blue bipedal puppy. "He was a bitch to catch. Hence the nickname."
"What else do you have?"
"I can show you in a second."
Sophie defeated the puppy and went into the team menu about as soon as everything loaded back in. Alongside Gotcha there was a bird creature named Missile; another bipedal puppy named Jenny; a duck named Psyduck and some sort of cat named Luxio.
"Gotcha, Jenny and the last two are mine," Sophie explained, flipping through the three. "Missile is just there as backup. See, he's level 35."
Adam nodded, watching the sprites rapidly switch before the menu was abruptly closed. Sitting back in his chair, he played with one of his sleeves. "What're you in for?"
Sophie shot him a look as he winced and smacked his hands over his mouth. That was not what he wanted to ask.
The action seemed to appeal to their better nature, however, as they playfully threw the question back at him. "'What're you in for'. Is this a jailhouse to you?"
In some ways, yes. "No, just-it slipped out. That's not what I-"
"Oh fuck off. We're gonna have to talk about it eventually, might as well share it with two strangers we're never gonna see again."
Adam huffed a laugh, his hackles finally soothing. "Yeah, maybe."
"I'll share my bullshit if you share yours first."
"Fair enough." Adam knitted his fingers together. "I, er...Was an orphan. And pretty much ostracized myself from everyone else. Because I'm an asshole. Next question."
Sophie snorted a laugh. "Man, you make my story sound pathetic. My only reason for being here is that my bloodline's literally ended with me."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means my mom's dead and my dad is god-knows-where. For all they know, he's dead too and they just never found the fuckin' body."
"Jeez. That's kinda rough."
"Just a bit." Sophie scratched under the dog's chin when it sat up. "How'd you become an orphan?"
It took a while for him to answer. How do you casually tell someone that you've never met that you're apparently not even human? "I was...Kidnapped."
"No shit?"
"Yep. As a baby." He pulled his sleeves over his hands. "My mother committed suicide and my dad just-vanished off the face of the earth. No one knows what happened to him."
"Damn." Sophie stroked the dog's back as it walked away towards its bed. "We've kinda got the same story, then."
Adam scoffed. "Not likely. Not unless you're also an altern-"
He bit his hand to cut himself off. Man, he's really running his mouth today. And unfortunately for him, Sophie caught on to the last cut-off word. "An alter...What?"
"Nothing."
"Alter ego?"
"Sure."
Sophie gave him a half amused, half "WTF" look, but thankfully played along. "Yeah, no, I'm just some boring old person. Last member of my family alive and all that. I've got the house to myself at 18, yippee..."
"Must be nice."
"Yeah, sure. I love hearing the sounds of the ghosts of my older brother and sister running around in the middle of the night."
"Could call a ghostbuster." Adam casually stretched. "Or, y'know. Some kind of society. Lucky for you, I was a ghost hunter."
"Is that what the BPS is for?"
He nodded with a grin. "Bythorne Paranormal Society. Sarah and I founded it together."
Sophie hummed, seemingly impressed. "Your friend must have quite the money if she could make the lettering look that good."
"She's not my friend," Adam spoke quickly. "I don't have friends. I don't make friends."
"I don't see why not. I think you're kinda cool."
"Because I don't. Okay?"
"Alright, okay, I'll back off..."
Adam fumed at himself for a moment as Sophie agreeably went back to her video game. The silence that fell here was a little less awkward than it had been previously.
At least, to him.
~~~
Sophie mentally kicked herself. Here she was doing so well and then she had to go and hit a nerve with a guy she was starting to get along with. Making friends was hard enough without blowing it with one because of accidentally coming across as judging him or whatever happened there.
The therapist's dog walked over, likely sensing her internal self deprecation. Sophie moved aside the DS and reached down to pet it, jerking back when the console was taken out of her hand.
"Oh, sorry." Adam handed it back to her. "I thought you wanted me to hold it or something."
Sophie got "stuck", as Jenny would say. She didn't take the DS, instead stared at it while petting the dog.
"Should I...Not have talked to you? Again?"
The slightly anxious and weirded out tone in Adam's voice snapped her back to her senses. "What? No, sorry-I mean-"
She took the DS back and pulled out the stylus to flick it between her fingers. "I didn't mean to...Be stand-offish. I just thought that you wouldn't want to talk anymore, so I guess my brain just kind of backfired."
"Like some kind of robot?"
Sophie shot him a dark look. It lessened when she noticed Adam wasn't smiling. He wasn't teasing her, at least not outwardly. "Sure, I guess. Kind of like a robot. Wires got crossed."
"I do that sometimes."
"Yeah?"
Adam rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, but when my wires cross, I kinda just get frustrated and end up snapping at people."
"Because you don't know what to say and they won't listen. Right?"
He shrugged. "Sure. Sort of. I don't know."
"Watching wires get crossed in real time-"
"Fuck off!"
Sophie laughed a little. Adam glared at her, though it seemed more playful than anything.
"Glad to see you two getting along."
The two young adults jumped, noticing there was now a third person in the room with them. A nice-looking woman smiled down at the two, stroking the dog's silky head when it nudged her side. Adam dug into his hoodie pocket to grab his phone and presumably check the time.
"I'm sorry I'm late," the woman said. "I just had to finish up with someone else. Adam, please come in."
He balked pretty hard, going so far as to grab the bottom edge of the chair. Sophie put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a smile. "It's alright. She's supposed to be good."
"Buster may come in with us, if you would like a friend?" The woman offered.
Adam looked cornered. He stared at the dog like it would jump up and bite him as he slowly got out of the chair and stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets. The woman let him into the office with a warm smile, getting a rather pathetic attempt at one in return before Adam ducked into the room.
Sophie sat back to keep playing her game when something on the chair beside her caught her eye. On the metal bar underneath, there were four deep scratches; as if someone had managed to pull a rather determined cat out from under it.
Adam had been gripping the chair there. She was sure the mark wasn't there before, so either he somehow manage to do it or she'd been blind to it before.
What kind of fingernail strength did he have to manage that?
~~~
"So how did it go?"
"I told you it would've been a waste of time." Adam leaned against the building wall, glaring at whoever made eye contact with him because he had the audacity to call someone directly outside the door. "She didn't believe a fucking word I said and said I had fucking post-traumatic stress disorder or whatever the Hell you want to call it. Told me the call was a hallucination or a bad dream that stuck with me because 'that's how it manifested'."
Sarah heaved a sigh and growled something about "$50 wasted on nothing". "We'll keep trying. I'm not giving up on you."
"Jesus fuck, Sarah, I don't need therapy!"
"Yeah-I think the night you called me in the middle of a mental breakdown says otherwise."
Adam rolled his eyes. His scowl lightened up when a familiar laugh came from the doorway beyond. Sophie left with a redhead beside her, the latter making her laugh pretty hard about something. Despite this, she spotted Adam out of the corner of his eye and sent him a wave. She said something to the redhead and they waved her off, letting her go over to Adam.
"Are you even listening to me?!"
And Sarah almost makes him jump out of his skin. "Later, Sarah. Okay bye."
"I'm not do-"
"Hey stranger." Sophie apparently ignored him stuffing his phone back into his hoodie pocket and trying to act natural as she made her way over. "Fancy seeing you again."
"Yeah, I'm just waiting for my ride back home."
"We could give you one." Sophie jabbed her thumb back at a slightly beat-up green car. "We're going out anyway, wouldn't mind going off the beaten path for once."
Adam's phone buzzed. He weighed his options but chose to ignore it, motioning for Sophie to lead the way.
He'll deal with Sarah lecturing him later. It's about damn time he had some fun again.